UFO Investigations

 Date:  20-Jun-87 20:31 MST

From:  Executive News Svc. [76374,303]

Subj:  APfl 06/20 1301  UFO Investigations

By BILL KACZOR Associated Press Writer 

   FORT  WALTON BEACH,  Fla.   (AP)  -- A  retired  Air  Force pilot  says  he

suspects,  contrary  to  official  denials,   an  unknown  federal  agency  is

investigating  reports  of   unidentified  flying  objects  and   other  close

encounters with extraterrestrial beings.

   Donald M.  Ware, Florida  state director of the Mutual UFO  Network Inc., a

private "ufology" organization, says he doesn't  have any direct knowledge but

nearly a  lifetime of  study leads him  to believe  probes are  secretly being

conducted by some national intelligence agency.

   "That idea doesn't bother me.  I don't mind being an unequal partner," Ware

said in a recent interview.  "I support the policy of secrecy."

   He  said   secrecy  would   be  necessary   because,  official   statements

notwithstanding, he is convinced the subject involves national security in the

form of advanced alien technology.

   Ware said he intends to take that message to the Annual MUFON UFO Symposium

June 26-28 at American University in Washington,  D.C., where he is to be part

of a panel discussion on UFOs and the government.

   His  position is  unlikely to  be shared  by many  UFO investigators,  Ware

admitted.  A common complaint of ufologists is the government's professed lack

of interest and its failure to cooperate with private UFO studies.

   "I'm so bold as to suggest there  is a possibility of cooperation with some

unknown government agency if  we show a little more tolerance  of their policy

of secrecy," Ware said.

   "As long as we  publicly take such an antagonistic attitude,  as long as we

place the government  in an adversarial relationship," Ware said,  "we are not

going to get much cooperation from them whoever they are."

   The  Air Force  closed its  Project Blue  Book investigation  of more  than

12,000 UFOs in 1969 after a panel  of scientists found no evidence of visitors

from outer  space.  Most sightings  were found to  be such things  as planets,

stars, meteors, weather  balloons, satellites, false radar  echoes, marsh gas,

clouds, aircraft or optical illusions, but a few have remained unexplained.

   The official word ever since has been that the government has nothing to do

with UFO  investigations and  whatever they might  be they  pose no  threat to

national security.

   Ware, 51, joined the service in 1957.  He said he was uninvolved in the Air

Force's UFO activities during his 26-year  military career as a teacher, staff

scientist and fighter pilot, including two combat tours in Vietnam.

   "That's one reason I can speak so freely," he said.  "I have no information

from the Air Force."

   His interest  began as a  teen-ager in 1952  when he saw  star-like objects

streaking through the sky while walking near his home in the nation's capital.

Similar sightings, including  radar returns, had been reported  a week earlier

and Ware said they remain unexplained.

   He began reading everything about UFOs he could get his hands on, including

books  in the  library  at  Duke University  where  he  received a  mechanical

engineering degree.  He later earned a  master's degree in nuclear engineering

from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

   Ware kept up  his interest in UFOs,  building up a personal  library on the

subject and questioning other pilots.

   "I had  no qualms  about saying, `Anybody  seen a UFO?'  " Ware  said.  The

answer, he said, usually was "yes."

   However, until March  of 1970, military personnel were ordered  not to talk

about UFOs, Ware said.

   "I think that in  the late '40s and early '50s  the U.S.  government really

wanted the public to  tell them what they saw and  that those people primarily

responsible for  investigating UFOs were not  listed in the phone  book," Ware

said.  "The U.S.  Air  Force was chosen as Uncle Sam's  public relations agent

because they were listed in the phone book."

   No one thing has convinced him  of government involvement, Ware said.  "Two

years of  study after I  saw the UFOs  in 1952  convinced me that  somebody is

watching us," he said.   "Ten more years of study caused  me to think somebody

in our government has known that as a fact at least since 1947."

   Ware said his  goals in becoming state director of  MUFON, an international

scientific  organization based  in Seguin,  Texas, were  to improve  relations

between "ufologists" and the government and to  learn all he could about alien

technology from abductees and other witnesses of close encounters.

   Ware said he  hasn't seen any more  UFOs since 1952 and  doesn't expect to.

"I haven't  been selected," he  said.  He still scans  the skies, but  not for

UFOs.   When he's  not investigating  UFO reports  or giving  talks about  the

subject to civic groups, he is bird watching.   He is treasurer of and runs an

annual bird count for the Choctawhatchee  Audubon Society and does surveys for

the Florida Breeding Bird Atlas project.

   Ware said his  two avocations are unrelated.  "Lots of  people have accused

me of  getting a lot of  satisfaction from identifying feathered  objects," he

said, grinning.  "No, I'm just a nature boy."

    

   

Copyright 1987 by the Associated Press.  All rights reserved.